Writing A Book
Have you ever wanted to write a book, but didn't know where to start? If so, you have come to the right place. Most young writers today have a wonderful vision of writing and completing a novel, but never sit down to do it. Others might start and never finish the first draft, or you might start and not know how to keep going. Whatever it is stopping you, nothing is getting in the way but yourself. Only you can wake up and decide to write. Now you might be wondering where you begin, and the best place to start is to have an idea. What is it that you want to write? What genre are you going for, and where do you want the story to go?
Once you have all these ideas in place, you can begin writing the first draft. Now, most people, when they get started, are often too focused on writing the perfect book in one pass. But that's simply unrealistic, so in that case, it's really better just to stop worrying about how good the prose is and just write the whole book without stopping. Then you might wonder, "What do I do when I get writer's block?" Well, if you don't know where it's going, stop thinking and just write whatever, and just let the story shape itself. Trust me, you might even be surprised what you write into the story by accident, and it might turn out you like the scene even if you never planned to put it in. That's one of the most beautiful things about getting in the flow of writing, because once you're in the flow, you're no longer worried about how good it is. Everything just comes together more organically.
The hardest part I see among many writers that usually slows them down from completing their manuscript is that most days they don't feel like writing. That's one of the hard realities of writing a book, is that most day's your not going to be inspired, so what do you do? Well, the best thing is to simply turn writing into a routine. For example, I love to write in the evenings before bed; I find it calms me down, and I feel like my best work is written at night. Again, everyone is different and will have their own idea of what the best schedule is for them. At the end of the day, though, the best thing a writer could ever have is discipline, because if you can master that, you will be so unshakable. The problem with most of us is that we only want to write when we're motivated and inspired, and if you only rely on that, you will never complete your novel as easily.
Another thing to think about is that you don't need to write half your book in a day. Take your time just to write it in small chunks, because that way you don't overwork yourself, and it will give your brain time to process the story as you go along. When I write novels, I usually only write one to two pages a day during the week. It's not much, but it adds up pretty fast. But if you find it works to write ten or more a day, that works too. Sometimes, it's easier to write one good page a day, though, than it is to write many as you get tired throughout the writing day. In fact, it's a big mental workout in itself, but also one of the most rewarding things when you get up and work on it every day.
After you have your first draft finished, put it away for a coupled day's and sit away from the book. The reason is that you're still in creating mode once you write the last couple of pages, and it's much easier to sit down and just take your mind away and focus on something else. Then, after a couple of days have passed, take your draft out and read through it as if you've never read it before. Why do this? Because the idea is that you put yourself in the reader's shoes to see if it has potential, as well as checking for things you might want to change.
Obviously, when reading through, it's not going to read like a perfect published New York Times bestseller, but what it will do is allow you to look at your work from a fresh perspective. As you go along, you might find that some chapters don't need to be there. Or you will find that you just end up rewriting full chapters, which is not the end of the world. Most of all, the best thing is just to see what's working and what isn't. Ask yourself as you read through: does the story make sense from beginning to middle to end? Is it engaging and Interesting? Once you have an idea of what you want to keep and change, you can begin the full editing process.
This is where the real work begins, because now you can go back and fix things that you didn't bother to well getting the story down. You might end up cutting a bunch of paragraphs that never need to be there as you begin to tidy up the prose. You might notice as well, because a lot of writers like to reach a word count goal, that your manuscript ends up with a shorter word count after edits than before. That's normal, and it's not the end of the world. The goal is not to write the longest book ever; plus, it's better to go for quality over quantity anyway. It makes sense for those of you trying to follow the industry standard to worry about word count, but at the end of the day, don't worry about it. Just focus on writing a good story. And you can always add more if you need to. Once you've finished editing your first draft, you can either edit it again or you can try to publish it or try to pitch it out to agents. Whatever it is you want to do with your book, you can now pat yourself on the back and be proud that you completed what you once dreamed about.
